By combining Música en Vena association’s years of past experience organising mini concerts in hospitals with scientific research protocols, we designed a working methodology that basically consists of 10 key steps:
1 Create a multidisciplinary advisory board comprising musicians, doctors and music therapists, and a general project management and coordination team
2 Post a job offer aimed at professional (or end-of-studies) musicians in the predetermined musical genres
3 Evaluate and select candidates in auditions and interviews supervised by the Advisory Board
4 Carefully select the musical repertoire, curated by the Advisory Board in collaboration with the chosen musicians
5 Train and inform healthcare personnel
6 Define the care protocol, i.e., the musician’s role in the healthcare setting (rules, norms and ethical principles)
7 Define the music intervention protocol: phases (beginning, middle, end), methodological bases, interactions with patients and family members, data collection
8 Supervise the first interventions, accompanying MIRs at their “hospital debut”
9 Measure impact using our MIR matrix; measure qualitative and quantitative data
10 Analyse and evaluate
